All this year I have been following streams and hunting cascades and there was one major pending to do adventure! As always I needed a motivation and Nalinda and the gang provided me with it. They did this trail 3 weeks back so I was tempted to follow their footsteps. For years I have noted many cascades above Bomburu falls and wondered how was I going to plan this trip but after getting few tips from my friends I decided to go ahead.

We started the journey very early in the morning and caught the Colombo-Badulla bus at about 3:30 from Maharagama, the bus had left Colombo at 2:55 according to the bus schedule which was on display. We reached Ratnapura at about 5:20 and managed to catch the first bus of the day to Kalawana from the Ratnapura central bus stand which was scheduled to leave at 5:30.

We reached Belihul Oya and I called Premadasa and got the directions to his place along the Belihul Oya-Landuyaya road. Yeah, you guessed right coz another beautiful waterfall known as Pahanthudawa Ella is also located on this road. Premadasa’s house is in Galpoththenna, Ibbanwala about 3km from Belihul Oya. However we missed him and drove all the way to Ihala Galagama School. It was a good thing coz we could see the Galagama Ella in the far distance and so far higher in the mountains bordering the Horton Plains. The elevation difference was around 1000m (yeah 1km) or probably more. Nagrak Bungalow is located well over 7200ft (almost as high as Sri Pada). Therefore Galagama Ella must be one of the falls located at the highest altitudes in Sri Lanka, of course in closer competition with Baker’s Falls aka Gonagala Ella.

This is a quick report with few tips to unseasoned travellers to Wilpattu National Park. 15th Friday was a holiday and some of our friends gathered as usual in the afternoon and the chat turned in to a trip planning session and was thinking of going to Wilpattu early next morning with the intention of being at the entrance by 6 AM. One of the guys wanted to leave on the same day and the discussion turned in to leaving in the evening on the same day.

From Yatiyantota town turn to Amanawela road and proceed about 10-15km to the Olu fall. On the way to Olu ella you could find Kithul ella, We oya ella and some other small falls. When we came to Olu fall we started to climb it up to the final drop point. It is not easy to cross the speediest water stream but we reached there and had a bath from that milk type water.

I have always felt very sentimental about Great Western coz it was the turning point in my hiking life. When I went to GW last time, I told Morgan that we must camp on the summit one day and get the ultimate feeling of this beautiful lady. Oh, please check out the note I’ve put in the box at the top regarding GW coming down the list of Highest Mountains of Sri Lanka to the 7th place. It’s a mystery what this Kudahagala is and the Wikipedia gives no information as to its location, even the district. I wonder if this is the Agra-Bopath at HP coz there’s another mountain further down the list named Mahakudahagala at the 11th place with a height of 2096m. Casual search on Google didn’t yield anything fruitful either. Hopefully, one of you might be able to shed some light into this subject.

Let’s move on and start our journey, shall we? Anyway, she coming down the list was not a very happy thought for me. I wanted to take my hiking partner in the first journey, Hari with me but he wasn’t that sentimental about GW like me and decided to focus on something he’s not done before as the list of our to-do-things keep growing longer every passing day. So I was down to Uncle Tony, Atha and Prasa. Unfortunately, Tony had to pull out at the last minute leaving the three of us and we were in no mood to back off. Oh Atha too bought a tent with me so we wanted to try our tents at 2000+m.

බි‍්‍රතාන්‍ය පාලන සමයේ ලංකාවේ විවිධාකාර සංවර්ධන ක‍්‍රියාවලි සිදුවිය. ඒ සියල්ලම ඔවුන්ගේ පහසුව වෙනුවෙන් සිදුවූ ඒවාය. ඒ අතර අදටත් අප භාවිත කරන විශ්මයජනක කර්තව්‍යය වනුයේ උඩරට දුම්රිය මාර්ගයයි. කිලෝමීටර 292 ක් දිග කොළඹ-බදුල්ල දුම්රිය මාර්ගයේ පිහිටි බිංගෙවල් ගණන 43 කි. අද අපේ ක‍්‍රියාදාමය නම් කි.මී. 9 ක් දුරැති ඔහිය-ඉදල්ගස්හින්න දුම්රිය මගේ චාරිකාවක් යමින් බිංගෙවල් 14 ක් හරහා යාම සහ දෙමෝදර ආරුක්කු නවයේ ඓතිහාසික පාලම යටට ගමන් කිරීමයි.

My nephew, a forum member who paved way for me to Lakdasun, came back from abroad with a very expensive set of camera equipment to test in our poor country. So we decided to try Gal Oya National Park. When inquired, Park Officials suggested us a place to stay over night. The owner of the lodge has a jeep and Wildlife Office was able to facilitate a land trip as well as a boat trip.

We started our trip on 5th March on 5.30 a.m. We reached Pinnawala at 8.00 a.m. First we went to see newly open “Ape Gama”( The model of old village ) We spent nearly 1 ½ hrs there & went to Deliwala “Kotawehera”. The temple situated in Rambukkana – Dombemada main road. After worship the viharaya we went to Kele Dambulla Temple. It situated 4 – 5 km’s away from Deliwala “Kotawehera”. It also nice place & we have to climb more than 350 steps to Len Viharaya. After that we went to relatives house in Kadigamuwa.

I was searching for a place to do some trekking as some of my best buddies with whom I have enjoyed some memorable hikes, were available for some fun…. After going through some of the places I thought of paying a visit to Knuckles. This time my place of choice was Thangappuwa as I was not able to hike from Thangappuwa for which I was not happy at all. So days were fixed and weather forecast though not 100% perfect was fine.

Karagahatenna peak occupies six transmission and radar towers. It provides nice panoramic view of surrounding areas. This is my experience on journey to Karagahatenna peak.

It’s an extremely rare occurrence since July 2012 that I’d stay without going anywhere for more than 3-4 weeks. However since 18 Oct until 15 Nov I spent all of my weekends feeling depressed beyond imagination with nowhere to go. It was like a living hell having to spend my time dreaming about the places and things I wanted to go and see. I was scared I’d actually go out of my mind and will have to get admitted to the hospital you-know-where.

Finally Hasi became my savior when he managed to escape his busy schedule for a quick one-day tour. As he’s not been to Waterfalls of Colombo and it was so convenient, we decided to give it a go even though I’d been there once before. So we finally left, armed with umbrellas and raincoats, for Kaluaggala on the 15 Nov morning when the rains were falling cats and dogs. The sky was gloomy and charcoal grey with no sign of sunlight when we started our journey around 6.30am.